Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, November 17, 2011

XVIII . He who plays host without giving his personal care to the repast is unworthy of having friends to invite to it.—Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin was a French lawyer and politician, and gained fame as an epicure and gastronome. His famous work, Physiologie du goût (Physiology of Taste), was published in December 1825. The full title is Physiologie du Goût, ou Méditations de Gastronomie Transcendante; ouvrage théorique, historique et à l’ordre du jour, dédié aux Gastronomes parisiens, par un Professeur, membre de plusieurs sociétés littéraires et savantes. The book has never been out of print since it first appeared, two months before Brillat-Savarin’s death. Its most notable English translation was done by food writer and critic M.F.K. Fisher, who remarked, “I hold myself blessed among translators.” Her translation was first published in 1949.

5 days agoby jonell_gallowayWe all have to let off steam from time to time. I do it through words, sometimes harsh, sometimes sweet; Venice does it through windows and steam-pipes. Hand-shaped bricks were laid onto this marshland over a thousand years ago and still stand, the alder wood foundation stakes digging deep to reach the bottom sands of this shallow lagoon. This wall tells a tall story, filled in over the centuries with newer bricks and stones, later covered with plaster, itself now crumbling with age, like family stories that change tones with the times and are embellished with black or white lace